Susan McKeown - Lowlands
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Susan McKeownEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2000-09-26
Music Label: Green Linnet
Soundtracks:
- An Nighean Dubh/The Dark Haired Girl
- Johnny Coughlin
- The Hare's Lament
- Slan Agus Beannacht/Goodbye and Farewell
- The Snows They Melt the Soonest
- Nansau Og Ni Obarlain/Young Nancy Oberlin
- Lord Baker
- Dark Horse on the Wind - Susan McKeown, Weldon, Liam
- The Lowlands of Holland
- Bonny Greenwood Side
- To Farir London Town
- The Moorlough Shore
Free Music Notes for Lowlands
Free Music Review: Celtic ballads with gentle world music influences
Hit: 5 Stars
"Lowlands" is a perfect name for this album, which showcases the lush, low, sultry voice of Susan McKeown. She sings a collection of eleven Irish and Scottish ballads accompanied by a world-spanning variety of instrumentalists playing everything from guitar, fiddle, whistle, pipes and bodhran to kora, kaval, finger cymbals, Chinese erhu and Indian tablas. This isn't club-style "world beat" music, however. The tempos vary, the vocals are intimate and lingering, and the world music flavors are acoustic only, blending in tastefully but rarely overshadowing the distinctly Celtic character of the songs. "Lowlands" is music to be savored, appreciated both for it's nuance and its rich and clever arrangements. My favorites are the rhythmic, mysterious "An Nighean Dubh," the bouncy "Hare's Lament," the flamenco-influenced "Sian agus Beannacht," and the Mid-East-tinged "Lord Baker." The liner notes are very informative too, not only sharing Susan's personal reminiscences about when she first heard the pieces, but also documenting their original sources in terms of oral tradition, scholarship and/or earlier recordings. Joining McKeown on this album are, among others, Johnny Cunningham on fiddle, Joanie Madden on whistles, Aidan Brennan on guitar, Mamadou Diabate on kora, Samir Chatterjee on tablas, Wang Guowei on erhu, Eamon O'Leary on banjo, and Matt Darriau on kaval, gaida and clarinets. If you like Susan McKeown's voice, check out also the recordings of singers Niamh Parsons and Mary McLaughlin.
Lowlands Poster
Susan McKeown not only has one of the finest voices in contemporary Irish music, she has wedded a profound understanding of the traditional songs of Ireland with an adventurous musical spirit. On Lowlands, her second collection of traditional songs, her connection with the roots of Celtic music is so deep that when she mixes instruments like the kora (African harp), erhu (Chinese fiddle), and tabla (Indian drum) with the less exotic violin, guitar, and tin whistle the results sound absolutely right. McKeown moved from her native Dublin to New York in 1990, an event that she says paradoxically made her feel more Irish. Songs like "The Snows They Melt the Soonest," which features the fiddling of Johnny Cunningham, and "The Lowlands of Holland," a lament about a lover's death at sea, are infused with the sense of loss and longing that haunt the emigrant in a new land. On Lowlands Susan McKeown performs a rare feat of artistic alchemy by transforming sorrow into beauty. --Michael SimmonsFolk Music CDs
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